


dreadful need

by khirimochi (NekoAisu)



Series: posthumous [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Decapitation, Depersonalization, Gen, Healing, Injury, Introspection, M/M, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Not Canon Compliant, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Pining, Post-Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, RDM Spoilers, Red Mage Questline (Final Fantasy XIV), Specific Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Spooky wol hours, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, happens after SHB, magical healing, nongraphic tho, that one trope where a magic user goes wild bc someone gets hurt and they’re super scared, vaguely divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24730222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/khirimochi
Summary: Sometimes, it is easy for X’rhun to forget that Fahmi is not just another duelist-to-be.Sometimes, he cannot look past what being the Warrior of Light has done to him.
Relationships: Warrior of Light & Arya Gastaurknan, X'rhun Tia/Warrior of Light, X’rhun Tia & Arya Gastaurknan
Series: posthumous [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1266878
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	dreadful need

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry this is incoherent
> 
> i am too nervous to post the 10K of soft content i have for these idiots so please accept this offering of unedited screaming

There is a time wherein X’rhun believes Fahmi a reasonable man. He believes his fellow Miqo’te to be in possession of a sound mind and better judgement. They both shoulder unshakeable burdens and share in the weight of continuing the legacy of Red, but Fahmi is also the Warrior of Light. He needs to be clear-headed. His is the hand that weighs life and death. X’rhun thinks he will be rational even when disaster strikes (when the inevitable happens and X’rhun follows in the steps of his departed fellows) but that assumption is shown to be woefully incorrect the moment Lambard wounds him. 

Arya (sweet, caring Arya) casts where she can and presses healing to his wound when not. She stands in the way when Lambard tries to kill him, magic and steel at the ready, and puts up the best fight she can manage. Had he not been bleeding out onto the ground and trying not to let his aether be consumed like cheap wine, he would have liked to cheer her on. 

Fahmi promised him that he wouldn’t use White the way he did when healing. 

(He had said it quietly, carefully, like too much emphasis on even one singular syllable would somehow condemn him.)

His hands don’t tremble on the hilt of his rapier when the blade tears swift and hungry into Lambard’s sleeve. They haven’t been that sure on his staff in many a year. Not when X’rhun met him and certainly not now. 

Something inside of him is terribly broken and the feral, animal part of him protects it with disavowal. It is a being made of pure violence—the howling of wind where it tears stones from the earth and forces Lambard backward ilm by ilm—and X’rhun wonders distantly if Fahmi has remembered to control the usage of his internal aether when conjuring such attacks. 

The man in question does not let up in his assault. Something about it is wrong, though, and when Lambard stops trying to consume X’rhun’s aether, the answer clicks into place. 

Fahmi isn’t thinking. 

There are times where he stops being mortal. X’rhun has seen it enough to recognize the tells. His attacks cycle like they’re all set on timers, spells packed back to back as if to maximize his output, and there is absolutely no room for self-healing. Lambard takes advantage of it.

He pulls, yanking aether from Fahmi’s bones like it’s not a _life_ he’s trying to take, and then startles when it keeps coming. Fahmi looks at him. Looks past him. Sees something without seeing. 

(And what was the last face he could make out before going blind? Was it the infallible enemy rumored to have struck him down, or the features of a dear friend? What is he perceiving when he stares at Lambard?)

His aether surges and the little voice in the back of X’rhun’s head that tells him to _get out of there! Run! Stay alive, stay awake, protect yourself_ is sounding an alarm. He needs to be farther from this. Arya needs to be safe from whatever is about to happen. 

But there is no warning before that flare quiets, sputters, and goes dead. Fahmi collapses to his knees and the mechanical, not-all-there look persists. Lambard laughs. 

X’rhun knows he can move. He can force his feet back under himself and make it to his side. He tries—and Arya is trying to keep him from moving. How kind she is to take care of him despite her own fear—and makes it three steps forward before having to brace himself with his blade. 

Fahmi stands back up. His wounds seal too quickly, leaving behind new lines of reddish scar tissue, and _oh. There it is._

There is his birthright. 

The world around them bends to his will, aether funneling in to take the place of what he has lost, and X’rhun can barely describe how it feels to have Fahmi’s magic suffuse his body. Heavenly, maybe. Absolutely terrifying seems to fit, too. It’s like a kick in the teeth with how powerful his grasp on White is. The crystal of his focus cracks where it floats above his palm as if it seeks to be a testament to its wielder’s power. X’rhun wonders how Fahmi’s body can stand it.

Lambard flusters. He tries to lash out again and snatch what he can, but the moment he manages to land a blow, it disappears. The only indication that Fahmi is even taking damage are the tears in his clothing. He is indomitable when using the healing arts, the skill learned amounting to something far beyond the paltry threat Lambard poses, and soon enough they’ve won. 

Fahmi stands over him, point of his blade the barest fraction of an ilm from his neck, and says all too evenly, “Make your peace.”

Being freshly uninjured and in possession of working limbs, X’rhun hurries to his side. Arya follows, anxiety visible in how she fidgets with her grip. They surround Lambard’s kneeling form. X’rhun manages to deliver some of the words he’s wanted to speak for _years_ and yet they taste so terribly bitter on his tongue. 

He wishes deep within his heart of hearts that he could have been selfish. That he could have protected himself and hidden away from what he might find in his search for closure. He wishes that Lambard had killed him too, sometimes.

The victory was not won by his hand. Vengeance has been served by his students, champions of the Red, and he is proud of them just as he is guilty for leaving such a burden atop their shoulders. It was meant for his bowed back alone. 

Lambard leaves him with a warning and taunt wrapped into one. 

“Will this be the injustice which breaks you? A pity I will miss… your suffering…” 

Fahmi draws his rapier back and with one decisive swing, severs his head. He flicks viscera from it and looks past them into some space between. Arya opens her mouth before closing it, grimacing. She’s never seen him like this, X’rhun realizes, and has not even the barest inkling on how to handle it (how to handle _him)._

He keeps his voice as calm as he can when he calls, “Fahmi, can you hear me?”

Fahmi’s ears flick. One swivels toward him ever so slightly. 

“It’s done. You can put down your sword.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

There is a long moment where X’rhun fears that maybe Fahmi is so unaware as to have believed Lambard to be another long-dead enemy of his, but he is soothed by how Fahmi simply says, “The land is unhappy.”

Arya asks, “Can we help?” She waits for his reply patiently. 

“No.”

“Can I make you less unhappy, then?” She inquires, taking a tentative step forward. The faraway look is turned in her direction, but she simply opens her arms instead of cowering. “You do this for me when I’m upset. I would quite like to return the favor.” 

He does not reply, but he does not protest when Arya wraps her arms about his chest. There is a minute shift and his rapier falls to the ground from numb fingers. “Forgive me,” he whispers, and X’rhun wonders how in all seven hells Fahmi can make such a mournful face. “Wasn’ right o’ me. F’rgot t’ warn… f’rgot… not to use White.”

_(“So Red is… finite? Just y’r insides?”_

_“Yes. The discipline is founded in finding and maintaining the balance between White and Black magic, each spell powered by the duelist’s own aether.”_

_“I think… I think I can do that.”_

_“Well then, what are we waiting for?”)_

The new scars he bears are almost painfully pigmented against the overly-pale cast of his skin. The remnants of his older injuries are all bleached white—a permanent change, X’rhun had been told, from holding too much aether within his soul—and the ones on his cheeks and across his eyelids are the worst of them all. Had he not known Fahmi before his trip to worlds unknown, he could have thought him to be something distinctly _other._

There is something ancient about him that is easy to miss when he is fully himself. The quiet kindnesses he shares are practiced but still ever so genuine. His strange ways of cheering up those around him, of forgetting to button up his shirts properly if he wears them at all, and of how he haltingly places his arms around Arya in turn are all so painfully _mortal._ That he could be something else (something untouchable) is not a thought X’rhun likes to entertain. 

Arya smiles at him, bright and relieved, and Fahmi must be able to sense something because he flushes red in splotches. “Thank you,” Arya says. “I needed that.”

Fahmi fumbles for words and X’rhun takes pity on him, stepping forward and joining the hug. “As you can see,” he says, tone reassuring, “I am well. The land will quiet when we take leave of it.” He can feel Fahmi’s skin radiate heat through his gloves. He needs rest before aether sickness takes hold.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Let’s go home.” 

And they do, though not before Fahmi tears Lambard’s remaining aether to shreds and sets it free to heal what injuries they inflicted upon the world around them. 

If X’rhun didn’t know better (if he hadn’t already seen Fahmi run face-first into a wooden beam) he would think that the man could see. He watches Arya so intently as they wander back that it’s a wonder he cannot somehow take measure of her soul. Instead, he listens to her talk, presses excess aether into her veins from where he holds one of his hands. 

X’rhun wonders why up until the point where they arrive at the gate back into Mor Dhona. Fahmi turns to him, smiles in his usual blinding way, and says, “‘M s’rry, Rhun.” before promptly passing out. 

Arya helps carry him to an inn room (and _no,_ he had no intention of allowing her to exert herself so after such an ordeal, but she is stubborn as any other duelist he has known) and settle all five-and-some-change of him down on the bed. The burning has only become worse, but the thing that is worse is how Fahmi does not breathe. 

_(“Sometimes you… you do not do what is expected?”_

_Fahmi looks at him like he’s grown another tail. “What?”_

_“You forget to breathe.”_

_“Oh. Ahir doesn’ like that either.”)_

He had explained it. There are only so many blessings a man can take before certain functions become more of a detriment than a necessity. X’rhun still wishes he could count on the rise and fall of his chest to ensure he was among the realm of the living. Instead, he settles down at his bedside. He would do what he can to ensure that the inheritors to the Red are hale and whole for as long as he can—or, at least, that's what he tells himself—even if it means acting the part of worried husband. 

He decides very quickly that the stool inside their inn room is absolutely _abhorrent._ He sits down on the bed, coat tossed over the offending seat in a wash of brilliant red, and does his best not to disturb Fahmi’s strange state of rest. 

He fails miserably when Fahmi’s breath stutters back to life, when the word word out of his mouth is a soft and barely audible, “Rhun.” 

He promised himself that he would not want, would not _covet,_ and had forsworn love in favor of a tryst here and there. Of course, Fahmi cares not for covenants and promises with how he steals the breath from X’rhun’s lungs with a single word. 

His name. Without the all-important X. Whispered. 

It feels like Lamberd has wounded him all over again with how it makes his head spin. 

“Rhun,” Fahmi says again, and something he has been trying to tame breaks free of its carefully constructed cage.

What a dreadful need he has to hear it once more. What a horrible, selfish creature he is to want to drink down the letters, the syllables, to taste exactly how it is Fahmi’s mouth shapes the sound of it. 

What a terrible person he is to deny himself the barest hope of attaining something like love.

He clears his throat before replying, feeling like he’s swallowed a wad of fur. “I’m here.”

Fahmi breathes deeply, chest rumbling in fits and starts with his broken purr, and says, “I know.”

“Why call me, then?”

“I jus’ wanted to.”

It’s X’rhun’s turn to make one of those ridiculous, reverent, _oh_ sounds. Fahmi turns his head, resting his forehead against X’rhun’s thigh, and says nothing more. 

That dreadful need is only growing harder to ignore.

**Author's Note:**

> hi im kiri and if you’re new around here, you should know i can only make incoherent nonsense about mutual pining and accidental child adoption  
> hmu on:  
> Twitter [@khirimochi](https://twitter.com/khirimochi) OR [@TheHolyBody (NSFW)](https://twitter.com/TheHolyBody)  
> Tunglr @[Main](https://kiriami.tumblr.com) OR @[FFXIV Imagines](https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com)


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